140 MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS RITES. 
same oracle in regard to his son, and the two met'in a narrow part of the 
road in Phocis. The king’s charioteer ordered Cidipus to clear the way. 
He disregarded the command, a contest ensued, and both Laios and the 
driver were killed. 
Unconscious of being his father’s murderer, he now proceeded towards 
Thebes. At that time the country was desolated by the Sphinz ( pl. 30, 
jig. 18, a, 6), a monster with the head and breast of a lovely young woman, 
the body of a winged lion, and the tail of a dragon. She propounded to 
every passer-by the riddle, “‘ Who walks on four feet in the morning, on two 
at noon, and on three in the evening?” and whoever failed to solve it was 
devoured. To rid themselves of this dreadful evil, the Thebans offered as a 
prize to the man who should answer the sphinx, the now vacant throne of 
Laios, and the hand of his widowed queen. (Ci&dipous hearing of the pro- 
posal, boldly approached the monster and answered “Man does! As an 
infant he creeps on hands and feet, during manhood he walks on two feet, 
and when old uses a staff.” The sphinx could not survive the solution, and 
cast herself down a precipice; or according to some authors was slain by 
(Edipous (jig. 20). The latter now became king of Thebes and husband 
of his mother Jocaste, who when the dreadful fact became known hung 
herself in shame and despair ; while her unhappy son, as an expiation for his 
unintentional crime, deprived himself of sight, ‘went into a voluntary exile, 
and finally took leave of the earth without pain or sickness, and at peace 
with the gods, whom his sufferings had induced to pardon his crime. 
7. Opysseus (Ulysses) son of Zaertes and Hurycleva, and king of Ithaca, 
was married to Penelope, who had borne him a son Zelemachos at the time 
of the commencement of the Trojan war. The oracle having predicted 
that he would not return for twenty years if he joined the expedition, 
Odysseus was averse to leaving his happy home. When therefore Menelaos, 
Agamemnon, and Palamedes came to Ithaca with a view of inducing him 
to join their efforts to liberate Helen, he feigned madness, harnessed an ox 
and an ass to his plough, and sowed salt. But Palamedes discovered the 
deceit by placing Telemachos in front of the ploughshare, which Odysseus 
carefully lifted over the infant. He had then to lay aside his mask and yield 
to the persuasion of his friends. In the expedition against Troy he rendered 
important services to the besiegers by his sagacity and cunning, which 
knew how to turn to account the most untoward circumstances. After the 
sack of Troy he started on his voyage home, but astorm threw him on shore 
in the territory of allies of the Trojans, who attacked him, and whom he had 
to conquer before he could proceed on his voyage. Another storm drove his 
vessel to the land of the Zotophagi (lotus-eaters), with which his companions 
were so pleased that he had the greatest trouble to make them re-embark. 
He was next carried by contrary winds to Sicily, where he and his com- 
panions sought refuge from the inclemency of the weather in a cavern, 
which was the residence of the gigantic Cyclops Polyphemos, who, on 
returning with his flocks from their pasture, found the intruders, and locked 
them up by placing a huge rock before the entrance of his cave. Every day 
he swallowed one of the companions of Odysseus, who however finally 
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